The Google Nexus 7 is the newest Android tablet to hit the market, except for one thing, it’s by Google. Well almost, the Asus made, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) powered 7-inch tablet is fueled by a Tegra-3 4x core chip, with a 12-core GPU and has a 1280×800 HD display. Available with 8GB and 16GB storage options that should be able to hold enough video for the 8+ hours of battery life. Make that 10 hours if you’re reading books or wandering around on the web, but it jumps to 300 hours if you’re just sitting there doing nothing. Hopefully, you’d find something to do within the two weeks before the battery drained, besides hold your droid.

With a fresh and progressive design, plus a cover that also doubles as a keyboard, Microsoft pleasantly surprised audiences at an industry expo with the Microsoft Surface tablet. With prices still undetermined, the Surface tablet when released will be available in two options; a Windows RT model and a Windows 8 Pro version. Both Surface tablets feature 10.6-inch, 16:9 widescreen HD displays, dual cameras and microphones for video chat and/or Skype conferencing, but that is about where the similarities end. The RT will give you a choice of 32GB or 64GB of storage along with your Nvidia Tegra CPU, USB 2.0 and microSD slots and a Micro HD video port. While the Windows 8 Surface Pro tablet pumps your storage capacity up to 128GB with a baseline of 64GB and will run on an “Ivy Bridge” i5 chip. Other differences include; Mini DisplayPort video port, USB 3.0 and a microSDXC slot, just to keep things complicated when you decide to purchase one.

The tablet market gets another potentially serious contender; the Blackberry Playbook is now available for purchase in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variations. Weighing less than a pound, and less than half an inch in thickness, the highly anticipated 7-inch tablet from RIM packs all the standard features you demand in a tablet, touch screen, Wi-Fi, Dual HD cameras, GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, the latest and greatest Bluetooth support and of course seamless integration with your Blackberry and the Blackberry Tablet OS.

It’s more than official, the PlayStation Certified Sony tablet is on the way.

While several websites and new articles cite the Google Android powered Sony tablet as a late entrant in an already crowded market, you should celebrate Sony for adding another tablet for us to consider buying. The recently revealed Sony S1 tablet (S1 is a codename until actual release), expects to become available later this year, possibly Q3 and is causing quite a stir.

Sony, seeking to stand out from the plethora of black slate, carbon copy tablets currently on the market opted for a different design approach. That approach resulted in a tablet design that the company says, will lend to being able to hold the Android powered Sony tablet for long periods comfortably.

With a screen just under 10-inches, the Sony S1 is a full-sized tablet powered by a Tegra 2 chip and backed by the latest Google Android operating system, which currently is Gingerbread, also known as Android 3.0. Of course you get a touch screen, Wi-Fi, WAN, an expansion card slot, front and rear camera, all the additional functions you demand in portable devices, and a bit more. Like PlayStation functionality.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 hardware wise is slightly thinner than the iPad2 at 8.6mm, comes with a 8.9-inch 1280×800 HD display, a dual core 1GHz processor, WiFi, Bluetooth and HSPA+ networking. On the other side a digital compass, gyroscope and accelerometer flush out the new Samsung Galaxy Tab. The new Android tablet will ship with Honeycomb and later Samsung will provide a custom interface over the Android 3 OS by the name of TouchWiz UX. Unless another Android 3.0 based tablet beats the new Samsung Galaxy tab 8.9 to market with a customized interface, the push update of the TouchWiz UX will make Samsung the first company to customize Honeycomb. Priced at $470 for 16GB and $570 for 32GB.

With a 10-hour battery, an all-new design, FaceTime and Smart Covers, the Apple iPad 2 is here. Lighter and thinner than the original, the iPad 2 features the new Apple dual-core A5 processor, a front-facing VGA camera for FaceTime and a 720p HD video lens on the rear. The iPad 2 comes with the latest version of Apple iOS (iOS 4.3), a compass, a gyroscope and allows for a iPhone Personal Hotspot.

With all of the competition out there when it comes to Android powered tablets, the Motorola Xoom hopes to separate itself from the pack. Powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor, the Xoom tablets gets bragging rights as the worlds first Android 3.0 Honeycomb powered tablet. Motorola’s Android tablet features a 10.1-inch touchscreen, 2-megapixel front camera and a 5-megapixel rear facing one that captures video in 720p HD and support for Adobe Flash. The “Best of Show” winner at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show rolls out on Verizon Wireless for $599 with two-year agreement and $799 with no obligation.

The HP TouchPad is the current pinnacle of new webOS devices HP recently introduced. The 1.6-pound webOS tablet pc boats a 9.7-inch touchscreen display with a 1024 x 768 resolution and a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor. Additional features of the new tablet include video call support, the Beats audio engine, “true multitasking” and Touchstone technology.

Aggressively priced at $199 with a two-year agreement, the Dell Streak 7 is hoping to become the perfect tablet pc for those not looking to shell out at least three bills for an Android tablet built by the competition. However, you must turn in a $50 rebate, in addition to the two-year term limit to get that sweet $199 price. That is unless you want the Dell Streak 7 for $450 bucks.